Construction of the first ground-mounted German solar plant – entirely crowd financed and built without government subsidy – has begun. The solar plant is being built by the online marketplace, enyway, together with BayWa r.e. The project is a strong signal to policymakers: The two companies are responding to rising requests from society for greater climate protection and are presenting an alternative to slow-moving political discussions on the phase-out of fossil fuels. It proves that renewables combined with innovative and cooperative concepts, can get along without government subsidies and are even actively demanded by citizens.
To finance the solar plant, the start-up, enyway, launched its product called “change” in November of 2018. The idea behind the product is that ground-mounted solar plants can be realized with the help of consumers, who can then utilize the benefit of clean energy directly in their own homes. By using innovative blockchain technology, the solar modules are divided into individual and tamper-proof virtual mini packages - for example in the size of pizza boxes or ping-pong tables. The smaller packets are available at very low cost. The funding goal of the project was reached in April 2019.
The solar plant, built by the experienced full-service provider, BayWa r.e., covers an area of more than 7,000 m² and consists of almost 4,400 solar modules. It has an overall capacity of 1.3 MW and produces close to 1.3 million kWh of green energy. In comparison to energy produced from brown coal, 1,500 tons of CO2 emissions are avoided. The solar plant will begin operation in four weeks’ time.
“Successfully launching our product „change“ is an absolute milestone“, says Varena Junge, Managing Director and Co-Founder of enyway. “Not only for us, but also for upcoming renewable energy projects. We are proving that the energy transition is economically viable without government subsidies. Thanks to all the people that bought a solar pizza, the energy transition can accelerate and grow beyond the fixed borders set by politicians.“
Matthias Taft, Member of the Board responsible for the energy business, BayWa AG, emphasizes: “With the 175 MWp solar park, Don Rodrigo, realized last year in Spain, we have shown that large-scale solar parks can be built without government subsidies. Together with enyway, we are now demonstrating that we can build smaller projects in Germany using intelligent and cooperative concepts, beyond subsidies offered by the government.”
About enyway
enyway is a blockchain-based online energy marketplace known as the world's largest peer-to-peer platform for renewable energy, which renders traditional energy suppliers obsolete, strengthens decentralized renewables and democratizes the energy market. enyway is a spin-off of Germany’s largest green energy supplier LichtBlick and has been an independent company since summer of 2017.
